Space Mining

There are a limited amount of resources available on Earth. Their availability has caused wars, driven our technology, and written our fate. Now imagine a future where we are no longer constrained to this planet, where we could benefit from the resources of our Solar System.

In this studio students will design and analyze the feasibility of space mining, the process of retrieving resources away from Earth. Each student will each assume the role of a system engineer, focused on the R&D of a subsystem of the mission: such as launch, landing, deployment, mining, and energy collecting. Together, students will experience the iterative and exploratory process of engineering a complex system. We will start with basic lessons on chemistry, rocketry, and orbital mechanics. We will end with a mission that is out of this world.

David Wang

PhD, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, MIT

David Wang is a PhD student in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL), where his current research focuses on planning for autonomous systems. The goal of which is to be able to command a system via high level commands such as goals it must accomplish and have the system determine the appropriate course of action. For his masters, he studied techniques for improving software-reliability. Outside of work, he pursues a wide variety of interests, from building robots and planes to teaching. He was an organizer for the 6.270, Lego Robotics Competition for 3 years, and helped teach a variety of computers, programming, and algorithm courses over 5 years. He holds degrees in Aeronautics/Astronautics and Electrical Engineering/Computer Science from MIT.